Threadbare
by Mrs.Monster
Summary: After the events in Stull Cemetery, Dean Winchester moves to Forks, Washington, needing a quiet, monster-free place to live while looking for a way to get his brother out of hell. S6-AU, SPN; BD-AU, Twi-verse.
1. Prologue: Breath

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing related to Supernatural or Twilight.

**Author's Note:** Bella/Dean full-length story. Updates should be weekly to biweekly, barring unforeseen complications.

**Threadbare**

**Prologue: Breath**

With towns named after flatware, Dean's not sure why he even bothered helping save the world at all. Sam was gone; he'd almost lost Bobby; Cas was in heaven fighting a war Dean couldn't do anything about; and he was moving to a town called _Forks_. In freaking _Washington_. He didn't know what had possessed him to do such a thing. Washington was a state for people like Sam; the only impression Dean had of it was a lot of coffee, and people sitting around in coffee _shops_, drinking coffee and complaining about everything.

Not a very accurate impression, he was sure, but Dean didn't have much experience with the civilian world outside of TV. And other than a few exceptions, he thought all of those people were douche-bags.

But he'd gotten the tip from Rufus- just _proving _how out of his mind he was- while he'd been staying at Bobby's after everything that'd gone down at Stull Cemetery and Rufus showed up at the door, looking for help with... something. Dean didn't even know. But Rufus says that it's a quiet, peaceful, monster-free place, and that's what Dean was looking for. Why Rufus said it with a laugh, Dean isn't sure. That dude was just a bag full of crazy.

Dean had work to do, and he needed somewhere to lay low while he did it.

He sold a few (mostly) harmless artifacts from one of his old man's storage unit's to a (mostly) harmless collector in order to buy the one bedroom, one bathroom house that he'd looked at online. It didn't taste right going down, selling the stuff, but he needed money and stolen credit cards weren't going to cut it this time.

He'd driven halfway from South Dakota to the Olympic Peninsula with only his bag full of clothes and the arsenal in the trunk before it dawned on Dean that he would actually need _things_. A bed, a couch, a TV. He'd need things to _cook _with and eat off of, unless he wanted to keep eating take out day after day, but that was an expensive habit that he'd need to break if he wasn't going to be on the road.

It was an odd thought- not being on the road. It filled Dean's gut with a bundle of nerves that he really didn't like at all. He'd been on the road, pretty much, since he was five. There had been pit stops in various towns, but they'd never lasted long.

Home was in Lawrence that burnt down around them. After that home was the Impala; it was Sam and his Dad. He was all that was left; Dean and that '67 Chevy. But if he had his way, it wouldn't be just him for long.

But Dean didn't really know what in the hell to do. He needed all of this stuff, and he'd never needed _stuff _before. He decided there was nothing he could really do about it unit he got there; he didn't exactly have hauling room.

The house was obviously old. The exterior seemed to be in alright shape; white paint, red trim. No porch, just a small cement stoop with a set of rough wooden steps leading up to it. The inside was more worn. Linoleum peeling up in the kitchen, caulking pulling away from the tub in the bathroom. The water ran a little brown, but Dean had dealt with worse. Tan carpet in the small living room only had a few stains; none of them looked like blood, which was the only thing Dean was concerned with.

He managed to buy threadbare furniture at thrift stores and garage sales; a brown sofa, an arm chair that Dean insisted was maroon, _not _mauve. An old TV that he set on a set of milk crates and a set of trays that he could eat of off. He picked up a box of chipped plates and mugs, aplastic cereal bowls, a tray of silver ware, one pot and one skillet at a flea market. The only thing he bought new was a mattress and box-spring set that he got cheap. He washed used sheets and blankets at the local laundromat, then washed them again, before putting them on the bed. The house had washer and dryer hook-ups, but Dean couldn't afford a set and still set enough money aside for utilities each month.

Dean unloads the boxes and boxes of books that'd been crammed into his trunk, all about hell and the devil and trapped souls. He gets the rest of the house mostly put away, but leaves the boxes of books stacked in the living room like a mountain next to the couch. It's all he and Bobby have managed to track down on the subject, and after he takes a slightly rusty shower in his new bathroom and changes into a pair of sweats and he grabs the bottle of Jack that he'd bought himself as a house-warming gift. Dean grabs the top box, flips top open and starts reading. Surrounding himself in books and booze.

**-TB-**

_Watch out for the (much longer) chapter one of Threadbare, **Wrong, **in a few days. Thanks for reading! _


	2. One: Wrong

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing related to Supernatural or Twilight. No copyright infringement intended.

**Threadbare**

**One: Wrong**

Adjusting to civilian life wasn't a difficult as Dean had thought that it would be. Whenever he pictured leaving the business before, it was always with images of Martin and memories of his brief time in the cuckoo's nest. But about two months after arriving in Forks and settling into his little house in the middle of the block on Almond Street, his life had settled into a routine.

His days were filled with the sharp whisper of turning pages. He took breaks to eat when he remembered to, usually cereal or microwaved ramen or a frozen pizza. Dean had developed a somewhat unhealthy attachment to prime-time procedural cop shows; he thought they were hilarious. And at night, when the sun went down (sometimes even before) he had his friend Jack Daniels to keep him company.

All in all, Dean didn't think that he was doing half bad. Sometimes he still jumped at shadows, and he thought that he'd always be suspicious just by nature but things could be a lot worse.

Of course, he wasn't any closer to finding a way to get Sam out of the cage. He'd gone through about half the books that he and Bobby had compiled (what could he say? He was a slow reader without Sam and Bobby around pulling their weight), but everything he read wasn't very encouraging. And there certainly weren't any step-by-step instructions hidden in a 17th century text, like Dean had possibly hoped there would be.

The first time someone knocks on his door since he's moved in, other than instillation people, it's around eleven in the morning on a June day. Now, Dean never leaves his house unless it's to go to the grocery store or to the laundromat when he runs out of clean clothes, so it's not like he's made any acquaintances in this town. In fact, he still watches the bagger down at Shop 'n Save with a wary eye because the kid is just too goddamn _friendly_. So he really has no clue who could be knocking on his door.

He'd been sitting in his _not _mauve chair, trying to eat a bowl of cheerios with a fork because he's run out of clean spoons. He's dripped milk down the front of his gray tee-shirt but Dean doesn't particularly care as he walks bare-foot to the door. His jeans were probably dirty too, he doesn't really notice. When he pulls the door open, and there's a cop on the other side, Dean knows that his time as a free man is probably up.

After all, Agent Hendrickson had only been human. His story about he and Sam being dead was bound to have a few holes in it, and this dude was here to bust him. How many warrants had been on his head when Dean Winchester had been declared dead? Dean couldn't even remember. He knew murder was in there. That one tended to stand out. He could still probably get away. This guy didn't look like he could move to fast, maybe if he threw his cereal milk in his face he could make it to the bathroom and slip through the window and-

"...Dean Smith?" the cop was asking.

Wait. What?

_Right_. That was the name on his fake identification now, what he'd used to buy the house and everything else.

"Yeah?" Dean's voice is gruff from disuse; the only people he really talks to anymore are Bobby and the elderly checkout lady.

Probably not here to arrest him, then. At least not for murder. Guy didn't even have the right name. Dean Smith may have been a corporate douche-bag in an alternate reality, but the name gave him plenty of breathing room.

The cop was in a blue uniform, gold plated badge pinned to his chest. The top two buttons of his shirt were undone, showing a snowy white tee-shirt underneath. Dean assessed that he was in his forties, _maybe _closing in on fifty. And holy _crap _that was one hell of a pornstache.

"We've gotten a couple of calls down at the station from your neighbors. Complaints about the... unkempt appearance of your property." The cop looks briefly over his shoulder, and Dean leans slightly out the door and looks too, one hand on the doorframe, the other gripping his bowl and fork.

_Oh_. The grass was probably two feet high and weeds were growing thick around the base of the house, what he could see, and up through the sidewalk. He'd never noticed before.

"Now, what you do with your property is your business, mostly, but we do have an ordnance in place about grass height. It's so wet here, too much thick grass give us one hell of a bug problem."

Dean kind of blinks at him, face a little blank. He takes a slow bite of his cereal.

The cop looks down at the slightly damp front of Dean's shirt, fresh milk dribbling down bleeding the gray to a dark heather. "You run out of spoons?"

When Dean just shrugs a shoulder, the cop sighs. "Look, just cut your grass okay? I really don't wanna come back here and give you a fine. You got a mower?"

Dropping his fork back into the bowl that's now just milk and a few floaters, Dean scratches his damp chest, a little embarrassed now. "Uh... no."

_Grass. _Who knew that he'd have to worry about _grass? _

The cop, Chief Swan the gleaming name-plate reads, rubs his head a little wearily. "I guess you can borrow mine. Here," he fishes in his shirt pocket and pulls out his little notebook and pen, scribbling something on it. "This is my address. When you're ready, in the next _few days_, come by and I'll get you set up. Just remember, if you don't return it, I know where you live and I have a gun."

_So do I_, Dean wanted to say back, but he didn't think that it would be wise. So he settled for. "Thanks. I guess."

"Sure, sure." Chief Swan was already navigating through the foliage down the sidewalk. Then he got into his Forks PD cruiser and slid away from the curb.

Dean stays in the doorway, looking around at the jungle that is his yard, and then he spots the mailbox at the end of the driveway. It's so full of letters that the little door was wide open. He backtracked and dumped his bowl into the already full sink and walked barefoot outside, passed the Impala that was practically hidden by grass and retrieved his mail. His freaking _mail. _Of course all of the envelopes said Dean Smith, instead of Winchester, but _still_.

He carries it into the living, to the couch that now has his ass-print in the far left cushion. Electric company; gas company; a letter from Martin who must have gotten his address from Bobby; cable company; water company. Some place wanting him to buy life insurance. That one made Dean laugh until tears leaked from the corners of his eyes. The white envelopes were full of past due notices, disconnect notices, final bills. _Right_, shit. Because _he _has to take care of this crap now.

Though now it makes sense why the cable hasn't been working for the past few days. Dean seriously owed the Time-Warner company a letter of apology.

Getting on the horn to the utility companies, he pays up the past due bills and gets his cable reconnected. It seriously depletes his falsified checking account, but he knew that he would have to get a job eventually anyway. The headache he gets from a few hours of dealing with customer service assholes (though to be fair not _all _of them were assholes. Only maybe about ninety percent.) prompts him to jump in the shower, hoping maybe the hot water will help chase it away.

His water is still partially rust, and he figures he should get around to fixing that, but the shower does help with his headache, and Dean changes into clean jeans and a passably-clean tee-shirt, then bags up his laundry. Because he was already standing there anyway.

And then he figures that he may as well wash the dishes, because _why the hell not_? He's all kinds of domesticated now. Paying bills, showering, doing laundry, planning lawn care. What he finds in the sink, he's sure is alive and Dean winds up throwing most of what was in there straight into the trash. It's just him. He didn't need more than one bowl anyway. After that, he made a new rule for himself; _wash the dishes at least once a week, no matter if the sink is full or not. _He'd rather deal with a ghoul, they smelled better.

That night his friend Jack is feeling a little empty, so he settles for the slightly less welcome cousin, Jim Beam.

**-TB-**

The next day, he waits until after noon to drive to the address the cop gave him. Dean puts the Impala in park in front of a small, two-story white house behind an enormous, rusting classic truck. The cruiser is parked in the actual driveway. His boots scuff against the front sidewalk and the knife he has strapped to his ankle is heavy against his ankle. Not that he's expecting anything to happen, but it never hurt to be prepared. Even Dean knew that and he'd never even been a boyscout.

When Chief Swan answered Dean's knock, Dean briefly wondered if Bobby had a brother that he just didn't talk about. Maybe a cousin. From the flannel to the faded jeans; the only difference was that instead of a trucker cap, the cop was wearing a faded old baseball cap. And the pornstache. Dean wondered if he sometimes offered chicks _rides_.

Now, Dean has never been in this type of a situation before. His thing more runs to beheading vampires, not coming to Officer Friendly to borrow_ lawn equipment. _It just feels _wrong_. That's not to say he's unhappy to be off the road, it's just... different. And he laid in bed at about two that morning, three sheets to the wind, thinking that maybe he wasn't adjusting as well as he thought he'd been.

"So," Dean says, shoving his hands in his pockets, rocking back slightly. "You said something about-"

"Yeah, yeah." The chief was already stepping out the door, pulling it shut behind him. "Follow me."

There was a small storage shed, same white clapboard as the house, in the backyard. Dean was quickly learning that the chief was a man of few words as the guy shoved two planks of wood at him. Without turning from where he was flicking through keys on a ring, he said, "Go out front and lower the tailgate on my daughter's truck, set those up so we can just push the mower up to the bed."

"Sure thing, chief."

"My name's Charlie. At least when I'm off duty."

"Gotcha."

Dean got the ramp set up on the practically solid iron tailgate of the classic, and watched Charlie motor around the house on his red rider-mower. He just _knew _that he was going to look like a moron on that thing. Maybe he could take his shirt off; then at least he'd look like a _hot _moron.

They get the mower loaded in the truck, and Charlie tells him to go and get the weed-whacker out of the shed. Thank crap for Dean's minor-TV addiction, or else he would have no clue what a damn weed-whacker was.

Charlie is standing by Dean's car when he comes back around the house, and from the way this guy is practically eye-fucking his car, Dean thinks that he could maybe get along with this cop.

"Nice car," the chief tells him. "I couldn't see it yesterday. Guess it was hidden by all the... plant life."

"Thanks." He puts the weed-whacker in the bed of the truck with the mower, closes the gate. "This is your daughter's truck?"

Charlie just nods.

"Why isn't she drivin' it?"

The chief shrugs. "She married some rich kid. Truck broke down just before the wedding and he bought her this fancy new thing. I had a friend's kid who's good with cars fix it up. Y'know, just in case."

Dean thinks that sounds kind of sad, but doesn't say anything.

Charlie tails Dean back to Dean's house, helps him unload the equipment into his front yard, that's now swaying in the breeze. Handing him another piece of paper, Charlie says, "Just give me a call when you're done. I'll come by with the truck and pick it up."

"Thanks, man.," Dean says to his again rapidly retreating figure.

Then he's left there, holding the chief's phone number, in front of a red rider mower and his own _goddamn _house, and can't help but wonder how he got there.

**-TB-**

_I wanted to go ahead and get this up. It was driving me nuts, just having the prologue. Future chapters will be generally this length or longer, depending on content and whether we're into the meat of the story. Look for the next chapter, **Stayed**, sometime next week! Drop a line, if you'd like. _


	3. Two: Staying

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing related to Supernatural or Twilight. No copyright infringement intended.

**Author's Note:** I've have a couple of questions about Bella- rest assured, she'll be here in the next chapter. This is Dean's story, and will be told from his POV, so you'll find things out as he does.

**Threadbare**

**Two: Staying**

Even though it was only about sixty-five degrees, and there was a nice breeze blowing through the town of Forks, Dean was sticky with sweat working in his yard. His tee-shirt clung to his back and his brow was damp. Cutting through the thick grass had taken time, even with the rider mower, and Dean was on his second-day with the loaned yard equipment. He was working at the weeds that had grown up around his front door with the green weed whacker and it'd taken care of nearly all of them, but Dean had come across a weed that he could swear was actually a small _tree. _It was growing up against the rough wooden steps that lead up to his house, and the weed whacker just wasn't cutting it.

Dean needed heavy artillery for this job.The determination in him was familiar, only instead of being directed at a ghost or a demon, his full attention was on that goddamned weed. It would soon be sorry- Dean would make sure of that.

He went into the house to fetch the keys for the Impala, then opened the trunk where the car was backed into the driveway. The wooden handle of his machete was a comforting weight in his palm and even though the day was overcast, light still glinted off the long, curved blade.

Fuck that weed. Son of a bitch was going _down_.

Stripping out of his already soaked shirt, Dean laid it over the steps and then cut into the weed, chopping away bit by bit. When someone taps on his shoulder, Dean nearly jumps out of his skin. He jerks around, machete still raised and fully prepared to strike if the situation called for it.

It didn't.

A girl, in her twenties, was standing in front of him, holding a bottle of water and looking at him as if she were slightly amused. Her hair was long and black and glasses were perched on a slim nose. She wore a blue tee-shirt and cut off jean shorts.

"Sorry for scaring you," she says, obviously trying not to laugh.

"You didn't," Dean defends, lowering the machete to his side. "Who are you?" he asks after a moment.

"Your neighbor, from over there," she jerked a thumb to the house on the right. "Angela." She holds the bottle out to him.

Dean takes it, eyeing the clear plastic warily.

"Sorry about calling Charlie," she tells him as Dean is inspecting the seal on the bottle, finding it unbroken. So he had some trust issues, so what? He's never met this woman, and who just walks into a persons yard and hands them _water_? It could be poisoned. She looked like just the unassuming type. "We were kind of afraid that you were dead in there."

Dean just nods and after checking for puncture holes in the lid, unscrews it and drinks half the water.

"Nice tattoo," Angela says, looking at the anti-possession symbol on his chest.

Dean finishes the water, crushes the plastic bottle, tucks it into his back pocket. "Thanks," he says.

"Well, I live next door with my husband. If you ever get bored in there, all by yourself, you should come over."

"I'll do that."

She starts back toward her own yard, "Sorry for scaring you."

"I wasn't _that _scared."

"Uh-huh."

"I wasn't," he says, but she'd already gone inside her house with the hanging baskets of flowers on the front porch.

**-TB-**

He finishes taking out the weed, puts the machete back in the trunk of the Impala, and goes inside to shower the sweat and dirt and grass and _stuff_ off of him. Then he puts a call into Charlie who says that he'll be by with the truck in a few hours.

Drawn out of an 18th century text written by some dude Dean had never heard of before, but Sam probably would have known the guys entire background, Dean answers Charlie's knock on the door and they load the mower into the bed of the old red truck.

"You like baseball?" Charlie asks Dean as he's shutting the shed door behind the mower. He'd followed the chief back to his house to help unload.

Dean has to think for a moment. "I don't really know. My Dad liked it." That's kind of embarrassing, when Dean stops to think about it.

"There's a game on next weekend, Mariners are playing," Charlie pockets the mower keys. "Couple of guys are gonna come by, watch it on the flat screen. If you're interested."

Charlie wanted Dean to come over for... a baseball game. The thought gave Dean a funny feeling that he thought was probably indigestion from that burger he picked up for lunch.

They're back in front of the chief's house, standing by the Impala, and Dean says, "Maybe."

Charlie shrugs. "Game's at two on Saturday. See ya if I see ya."

**-TB-**

Cooking is harder than it looks, Dean decides. He's got one skillet and one sauce-pot and _tried _to bread and fry a pork chop and cook a can of green beans after the checkout lady at Shop 'n Save actually _made _him go back and buy 'real food'. Dean was sure they weren't allowed to do that; Marge, the elderly checkout lady, told him that she _could_, and did he really want to push the issue?

Like a dog with its tail between its legs, he went back and picked up a family sized package of pork chops and four cans of green beans, putting back a few of the boxed frozen cheeseburgers he'd had originally.

Three pork chops and one grease fire later, Dean called Bobby. He saw Bobby cook stuff all the time.

"Just put the damn thing in the oven. Wrap it in foil and throw it in there until it isn't pink in the middle anymore. Idjit."

Dean made Bobby stay on the phone while he executed this plan of action, and then told him about Charlie's invitation.

"I shouldn't go, right? I've got a lot more research to do and I'm not even close to getting Sam out, and this dude is a _cop_-"

"Jesus, kid. Will you stop whining about your _man date? _It's just a game. You'll go, have a few beers, eat whatever they got and don't shoot anyone."

"But-"

"Am I right in remembering that Sam told you to move on after he went to- after he was gone?"

"Yeah, but-"

"Look, Dean. I know you ain't gonna do that. You can't just let it go, but having a beer and watching a game ain't a sin against the memory of your brother."

Dean twists the top off a beer, leans against his kitchen counter, takes a sip. "Yeah, Bobby. I guess I know."

**-TB-**

On Saturday Dean stops at the liquor store and the guy who owns it tells him to buy some type of beer he calls _Vitamin R_. Dean takes the guys advice and it must've been the right move because Charlie claps him on the back and the sixer Dean bought joins what's already in the fridge. Dean follows him into the living room.

Two freaking _enormous _guys with dark tanned skin and closely cropped black hair stand up to shake his hand from where they'd been sprawled out across the couch. Next to the recliner is a guy sitting in a wheelchair who's closer to Charlie's age.

"Billy Black and his boy Jake," Charlie points out his friend and one of the young guys. "And Jake's buddy Paul." Charlie jerked a thumb over his shoulder at Dean as he made his way to his recliner. "Dean Smith." He sat and cracked open one of the beers Dean brought, handing another to Billy.

Immediately, Dean feels like the awkward man out. Though it may have been the way Paul, who was shorter than Jake but had thicker muscles, was freaking _eyeing _him. Dean didn't like it, and he already regretted coming. He should have just stayed at home with his crappy furniture in his tiny, crappy house and if he wanted to watch the game, fine, he could watch it on his own crappy TV.

He sits on the end of the couch with Jake sitting _right next to him _in the middle. A beer is thrust under his nose, and he looks up to find Paul watching him through narrowed eyes. Dean takes it slowly, locked in a stare down with the guy, and cracks it open, taking a long drink. Paul nods, short and jerky, and takes a seat on Jake's other side, opening a can of his own. Jake was drinking soda. Dean looks at the can in his hand, and has it halfway to his mouth before stopping. Poison, maybe?

Sliding a suspicious around the back of Jake's head, but Dean finds that Paul's eyes are trained on the TV, where the game is starting. But surely the dude wouldn't try to poison him in the police chief's house... _Wait_. Dean's never even met this dude before. There was no reason to be paranoid. No reason at all. He takes another slow sip.

Dean finds out that he does like baseball. He likes it a lot. He roots for the Mariners and they're in the lead when he finally realizes that his beer is empty and he gets up to get another from the fridge. As the game progressed, Dean had relaxed, feeling like less of an Awkward Andy, and he _likes _this. The thought brings a twinge of guilt, and Dean shakes his head as he pulls the fridge open.

"Hey, grab me a soda out of there, will ya?"

Looking over his shoulder, Dean sees that Jake had followed him into the kitchen. He grabs a can of soda and hands it over. "What, you not old enough for beer yet?" The kid did have a baby face.

Jake snorts. "By a couple of years. Charlie won't let me drink in his house."

"Why not?" Dean grabs a beer out of the fridge for Paul. Just returning the favor.

"He says that it makes him feel too goddamned old." Jake laughs a little and so does Dean, pushing the fridge door shut. He notices a picture stuck to the front mixed in with all of the different carry-out menus.

"That Charlie's daughter?" he asks Jake over his shoulder.

"Yeah," there's something funny in Jake's voice. "That's Bella."

The girl in the picture is sitting at the table in that very kitchen, opening a present of some kind. Birthday gift, maybe. A pale face is framed by very long, dark hair and there's a spattering of freckles over the bridge of her nose. Dean thinks that she could be pretty if she weren't staring at the present in front of her as if were going to attack her. _Seriously._ Who didn't like presents?

"That was taken on her birthday a few years ago," Jake tells him. "Wouldn't bank to much hope on ever meeting her."

"You sound like you don't like her too much." Dean turns away from the fridge and the picture and finds Jake fiddling with his can of soda, leaning against a row of cabinets.

"Not the case, my man. She was- I mean _is_, at least I _think _she is still, my best friend."

Dean doesn't really get what the kid is trying to say, so they both brush it off and go back to the game.

**-TB-**

Hanging out with Charlie becomes a regular thing for Dean. His days- weeks- are still filled reading, sometimes making calls to a few numbers Bobby floats his way, researching, but on the weekends he goes to Charlie's and watches the game, if there's one on, sometimes they grill, and they both shared a love of old kung-fu movies.

About a week after the first baseball game, Paul showed up at Dean's door and invited him to the reservation, only Paul called it 'the Rez'. And it turned out that _all _of those dudes freaking towered over Dean.

Now, this was a thing that he was used to; Sammy had practically been a freaking moose. But there were like _ten _of these guys, and one chick. And they were all taller than him and had enormous muscles and Dean was freaking _sure _that it had to be something in the water. Steroids or some other crap.

It'd been like a punch to the gut when he'd been introduced to the towering Sam Uley. All of the air had left his body in a quick rush and he had to scramble to not let it show; no way, not in front of a bunch of strangers who could smash him into a tiny grease spot. But it was like the guy could _tell _that something was off, and he'd just nodded at Dean, smiled, and went back to his wife, Emily. Who, and while Dean certainly noticed the scars running jagged down the side of her face, he thought was one of the most beautiful women he'd ever seen.

It's around the beginning of August and Dean feels like he could stay in Forks. Which hits him strangely, but he tries not to let it get to him. He likes his house now that it doesn't smell like someone _died _in there and he's actually trying to maintain it; he likes hanging out with Charlie and while the dude is old enough to be his dad, he's actually cool as fuck. He sometimes goes to the Rez, and he likes that he has neighbors to avoid- Angela isn't too bad, but her husband Ben annoys the _hell _out of Dean. He's on a regular every-other week rotation with Charlie over his mower, because Dean can't afford one of his own, and he's been thinking more and more about getting a job. The fake-checking account is getting painfully low.

Dean doesn't notice, not really, when he starts to back off of the bottle. It just happens. Between researching hell, and everything else, he doesn't have _time _to get plastered every night.

And he's narrowed his options of getting Sammy out of Lucifer's cage down to two: another deal with a demon, or Death, the horseman. Dean knows that it can't just be _any _demon, he has to find out who's running the show down there now; and Death because well, he's _Death_.

He runs his list of two items by Bobby one night. It's a damn hot one for being Washington and Dean was stripped down to his jeans, sitting on his couch and watching a _Monk _rerun.

"Are you _stupid_?" Bobby asks him.

"Ouch. That one hurt, Bobby."

"No, you damn fool boy, listen to me. Don't you _dare _go and make another deal. Not with _anything_. It's like an endless goddamn cycle with that family of yours, and it's got to _stop_. And it's going to stop with _you_, hear?"

Dean rubs his bare feet together, hits mute on the remote, leaving the room quiet except for their voices. "Yeah, I hear you."

He knows what Bobby is saying is right. And he knows that he needs to listen to him; for once in his life, Dean knows that he needs to follow the orders of someone who isn't John Winchester.

"You go down that road again and Sam's sacrifice will be for nothing, savin' the world be damned. And I ain't gonna let you do that to him."

**-TB-**

A few days after his talk with Bobby, Dean finds himself in Jake's garage, helping Jake work on his car. A freaking _Rabbit._ The amount of jokes that flew through Dean's head when Jake was telling him about the thing almost made Dean dizzy. But when Jake told him that he'd practically rebuilt the VW from scrap when he was in high-school gave Dean a sense of respect. The bond that a man held with his car was not to be mocked.

The breaks on the Rabbit had started grinding, and it was a pretty straight forward piece of work. They were about halfway through when Sam showed up, looking rushed.

"It's a ...tribal emergency," Sam told Jake, giving Dean a small sideways glance.

Dean still felt uncomfortable around the guy; it was unfair, he seemed perfectly alright, but Dean just _couldn't_.

"Ah, shit," Jake grumbled, wiping his hands on a red shop rag.

There was something here that Dean wasn't supposed to know, which made him want to know five hundred times more.

"Uh... if it's an emergency, I can finish up here."

"You sure?" Jake asks, already on his way out of the garage.

"Yeah, no problem."

Jake's, "Thanks, man," is barely audible; he and Sam are already rushing away.

"_Weird ass people_," Dean mumbles, turning back to the Rabbit.

**-TB-**

_Thanks for all of the encouraging comments! I know this chapter was a little disjointed, but _Dean _is a little disjointed at this point in the story. Look for chapter three, **Show**, around the same time next week! _

_Drop me a line, if you'd like. _


	4. Three: Show

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing related to Supernatural or Twilight.

**Author's Note:** Several of you are asking, "Where's Bella?" and "Will this be a Be;;a/Dean story?"- fret not, Bella resides here in this chapter, and it's marked Bella/Dean, so... we'll get there. This is only the third chapter, after all. Thanks for the comments, good to know that there's an interest here.

**Threadbare**

**Three: Show**

A few days after Dean fixes the brakes on Jake's car, Charlie calls him. Charlie and Billy had a fishing trip planned for that upcoming Saturday, but Billy had to shift a few doctor's appointments around and now there was a free seat on the boat.

"You fish?" Charlie asks him.

"Yeah, I mean I haven't for years, but yeah."

"Good. Bright and early Saturday morning. If you're late I'm leaving your ass behind."

"Sure thing, chief."

Saturday morning, around five a.m. found Dean loading his daughter's truck with fishing gear; rods, an ancient tackle box, an iced down cooler of beer and soda. A boat had already been hitched to the back; Dean knew that it was Billy's.

The lake was quiet and it was calm; surrounded on all sides by pines and it helped sooth the gnarled edge of guilt that had been in Dean's gut since he'd promised Bobby that he wouldn't make a deal to get Sam out. Since he'd stopped looking for a way. Dean and Charlie sat facing each other, cooler between them and another one behind Charlie for whatever fish they happened to catch.

They'd been at it for maybe an hour, not talking, just relaxing, but Dean figured that now was the perfect time to ask what he'd been wondering about for a while.

"Where's your daughter at now? I know you said she was married, but no one seems to-"

"Talk about it much?" Charlie cut him off. "It's a sore spot for Billy and the rest of the boys on the Rez. Some blood feud going back before I was even born. Don't really know much about it, but it just seems to be law that the tribe hate the Cullen family, and it goes both ways."

"And you?"

"Me? I-" Charlie stopped, a little flushed, cleared his throat, cast his line a little further out. "I worry about her. Whenever she calls, or we meet up in Port Ang to grab a bite she's distracted, and that husband of hers is always around. The rest of his family seems alright, pretty tight-nit I guess, but I don't see _her _anymore. Not just her, anyway."

"How long has she been married?"

"They got hitched when she was eighteen, and she's twenty-four now so around six years. now"

Dean let out a low whistle. "Eighteen? That's awfully young."

"Tell me about it. I just get the feeling, every time I talk to her, that she's trying to tell me something and I'm just not _gettin'_ it and it pisses me off." Charlie's looking out at the water and his face is a little red.

Dean cranks his reel a few times, debating on whether he should ask. "Do you think he-"

"Abuses her?" Charlie asks. "No. If I thought that I would've already gone up to their big fancy place in Seattle and killed him myself. No muss, no fuss."

Dean nods. He opens the cooler they've got on the boat, hands the chief a beer.

"What about you?"

"Huh?"

"I never asked what made you move all the way up here, shut yourself in your house for months on end." At Dean's look, Charlie grins a little. "I ain't stupid, kid. You were running away from something."

For a few brief moments, Dean considers telling Charlie everything. About what he and Sam really did, about the apocalypse and the war between the angels and demons. About Sam jumping into the pit to save the world. But he's found that he likes having a friend, and he'd really rather not have Charlie think he's crazy. So Dean had to make up a story on the fly.

"I lost my brother about six months ago. We were passing through Chicago, on our way back to Kansas from visiting a friend, and we stopped for a few minutes, just to stretch our legs, you know? Some guy tried to rob us, Sam jumped in front of a bullet meant for me." Dean tightens his grip on the plastic handle of his fishing pole. "Since we were kids, it was just me and Sam. Our mom died when I was four and we moved around a lot after that. Our dad would work odd jobs in whatever town we happened to be passing through, so we were on our own a lot. And then it was just me, no Sammy and I-" to Dean's absolute horror and embarrassment he felt himself tearing up.

"Whoa now. There's no crying in the boat." Charlie claps him on the shoulder, then reaches in the cooler and hands Dean a soda. "Here, stick with this. You're drivin' back."

**-TB-**

It's after dark when Dean finally gets home. He's got a styrofoam cooler tucked under his arm with a few cleaned, scaled and fileted fish on ice, that he has no idea how to cook. Dean slides it into the fridge and notices the answering machine that he'd hooked up to the house phone is blinking with a message.

Dropping his keys onto the counter next to the phone, Dean pushes the button to play the message.

"Dean? This is Sam Uley. Give me a call."

That is about the last thing that Dean wants to do, but figured that if Uley called he must have had a reason. He dials the number on the ID back and waits for someone to pick up.

"I saw the job that you did on the Rabbit's brakes and it was damn fine," Uley tells Dean once he gets him on the phone. "Jake tells me that you've been looking for a job, and I might have one for you if you're interested."

"Oh yeah?" Dean sandwiches the phone between his head and shoulder as he grabs a bottle of water from the fridge. "Keep talkin'."

"Don't know if anyone's mentioned it, but I own and run a little body and repair shop just outside of Forks proper. Been in my family for a while and I opened it back up about two years ago. There's a spot for you if you want it."

And just like that, Dean finds himself working for Sam Uley.

**-TB-**

He's been working for Uley for a few weeks, and Dean finds that he can get along alright as long as he sticks with the guys last name. He works five days a week, from the time the shop opens at ten, til it closes at seven. So far it's been mostly tune ups, basic oil changes and they got a couple of cars from a fender bender a few days ago. It's not exciting work, but Dean's doing something he knows just as well as hunting, and he's getting paid for it.

It's a Sunday and he's at Charlie's place. Charlie was in the backyard, manning a couple of steaks on the grill and Dean did his part by bringing a sixer and opening a few bags of chips.

He doesn't hear the front door open as Charlie yells from the back, "Come and mind the meat for a minute!"

And he doesn't hear the footsteps coming through the house toward where he's sitting at the kitchen table. "Damn it, Charlie! You know that pork is my comfort zone, stop trying to push me out of it!"

Dean does notice when a girl pulling a suitcase behind her, with another slung over her shoulder, walks into the kitchen. He recognizes her from the picture on the fridge behind him almost immediately, but he doesn't know what in the hell to _do_ so they just stare at each other for a few very interesting seconds.

Charlie walks into the kitchen through the back door, holding a plate with two thick, probably still slightly bloody steaks. When he sees his daughter, he stops, and then everyone is staring at everybody. Bella's eyes are darting back and forth between Dean and Charlie, and her brow is furrowing with a look of extreme concentration on her face. To Dean it looked like she was thinking really hard, and he really, _really_ wanted to ask her if it hurt, all that thinking. Because it sure looked like it did.

And then she says, "Oh my God. Dad... is that why you never remarried?"

Charlie sets the plate of steaks on the table next to the open bags of chips. "Huh?"

"Because you _couldn't _marry who you love? Dad! You should have told me!"

Dean is completely lost. "What?"

She drops the bag off her shoulders. "I want you to know that I am fully supportive. Parades, petitioning for votes, rainbow flag bumper stickers; I am with you one hundred percent!"

Charlie scrubs a hand over his face."Bella... no."

"What? Oh! Are you worried about coming out to the town? I think they'd accept you."

"Isabella- _no_," he says firmly.

And then, almost in slow motion, it all clicks in Dean's mind. He stands from the table slowly. Very slowly. "I think... I need to go home. Yes, go home. That's what I'll do."

He leaves, sliding past Bella who's face is rapidly turning red.

**-TB-**

The next day after Dean gets off of work, he heads straight home and as he crawls down Almond Street toward his house, he can see someone sitting on his front steps. Dean pulls into the gravel driveway and sees that it's Charlie's daughter. The girl was wearing dark jeans that were cuffed above her ankles and a black tee-shirt that made her pale skin stand out. She was twisting the ends of her long hair nervously and Dean could see from a few feet away that her cheeks were bright red with an embarrassed blush.

Dean wrenched the door open and Bella pushed off the steps and he noticed for the first time the plastic-covered plate she held in her hands. They met at the bottom of the steps.

"Sorry for thinking you were gay with my dad." She says it with an awkward smile and a short glance at his face. Bella hands him the plate, and his stomach rumbles when he sees _cupcakes. _

Dean shrugs, tearing his eyes away from icing that's piled high. "Your dad's a good looking guy, but I'm strictly girls."

Awkwardness flourishes between them; Dean shifts his cupcakes and his keys and the travel coffee mug he takes with him to work. Bella keeps twisting the ends of her hair, looking around his yard.

Finally, Dean asks, "Did you want to come inside or..."

"Oh! No, I should get back. I told Charlie that I would cook tonight." She shoves her hands in her jeans pockets, staring to edge around him. He doesn't see a car or her truck and assumes that she walked from Charlie's.

"Well, thanks for the cupcakes."

"Sure, sure," she says, and he lingers on the steps as she walks away quickly, without looking back, or up from where her shoes are scuffing through dirt and gravel to the road.

**-TB-**

_Chapter four, **Chance**, may be a little late next week due to a charger chord that is mostly electrical tape._

_Drop me a line, if it tickles you. _


End file.
